Microsoft has struggled to convince peopleto use its cloud storage service,OneDrive, for quite some time. Whether thats because of the costorthefeature set is unclear which storage service you choose comes down to your personal needs, and OneDrive may not do it for you, especially if you dont use Microsoft Office.But Microsofthas put in a lot of work to make OneDrive competitivewith the likesof Google Drive and other cloud storage services.The companyjust rolled out a few new features, includingafile detail paneandfamily and group sharing.These new features are definitely much-needed improvements to OneDrive, but its too little,too late for people like me, who have beenusingthese features (and then some)on Google Drive for years now.
I was an early adopter of Google Drive, so when GooglesBackup and Sync came to Windows I immediately installed it. No longer did I have to open my browser, sign into my Gmail account, and navigate to the Google folder I needed to access a specific file. I could do it all from my desktop. It also made uploading files easier, too. Open window. Click and drag file. Done. I installedBackup and Sync on both my desktop and laptop, so if I needed to work on something while I was away from home, I could automatically access it as soon as the cloud storage was done syncing itself to my computer. It made things so much easier for me.
Backup and Sync came out a month before I finally made the switch to Windows 10 from Windows 7, so part of my disdain for OneDrive comes from Windows asking me to sign into it every time I booted up my PC. No, Microsoft, I dont want to sync my files with OneDrive! Im in a long-term relationship with Google Drive. You cant expect me to just move my files to your house when I have invested years of time into creating a meticulously organized system of folders for everything: the work I did in grad school, the classes I taught, photographs dating all the way back to my childhood. Not to mention that,at the time,OneDrive just didnt have all the neat features Google Drive did.
The only thing I hated about Backup and Sync back then was that I could only be signed into one Gmail account at a time, which is kind of annoying when you have multiple Google Drives you need to quickly access at a moments notice. But thats a thing of the past, as you can sync as many accounts as youd like to your computer now. Still, every so often I save copies of all my files to my secondary hard drive, so I have backups in case I cant access Google Drive for some reason. Google Docs can be easily converted to Word files and vice versa. Youll need to actually open up Google Docs in your browser to do this, but its only a mild inconvenience.
MicrosoftWord is better for some things, like loading hundreds of pages ofdocuments, which takesforeeeeeever withGoogle.But for general sharing or collaboration, I stick with Google Docs because thats what Ive done for years, and most people I need to collaborate with dont have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription. Why get one when Google Docs is free, ya know?
If you dont plan to use OneDrive on your PC ever, heresa fantastic solution to avoidbeing bothered by it again:Uninstallthe damn thing from your computer. Its made booting upmuch more pleasant. Sorry, Microsoft. Im not buying what youre selling, no matter how many small tweaks you make to OneDrive.
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I Don't Care How Great These OneDrive Improvements Are, I'm Not Using It - Gizmodo UK